What if I HATE my dad on Father's Day?

(Lucie Svobodova) Definitely not everyone hates parents from 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos

(MisterQuigley) How poop knife loophole explains Israeli war crimes (malicious compliance)

Singalong, Everyone! Because I'm sure I'm the only one, right?

(Trafalgar) Falsettos' "Everyone Hates His Parents" (lyric video)

My Dad's a "Mad Man" (DRI)

(D.R.I.) Punk rockers deal with "Mad Man" from Dealing With It

"My Old Man's a Fatso"

(Angry Samoans) "My Old Man's a Fatso"

Hey, Beavis, we became our Dads, huh huh huh

In America, we hate our dads, I guess, until we become our dads. Then we hate ourselves and drink beer, wondering, "Did Dad hate himself? And did his dad hate himself? And is this trap sprung on everyone in the 'richest country in the world'? This is as good as it gets? This is the best?!"

O, Buddha, I think Bart hates Homer. - Warn him

But what kind of karma (deed, action, conduct) is that, and what will be the result? According to the Buddha, our parents provide a massive and tremendous opportunity for merit (good karma). The only people who provide more are the noble ones (those well-behaved people along the stages of enlightenment). But our parents also have a hidden danger for us, massive and tremendous risk of bad karma for their neglect, mistreatment, abuse. (It's strange because the same two people, if disrespected or harmed by others, wouldn't be such bad as if we did it. It would still be bad, but when it's our own father or mother, or people who raised us like a mother or father, it is VERY weighty. It is so weighty that the Buddha pointed out Five Heinous Karmic Crimes, two of which are matricide and parricide). How we treat them, talk, feel, and think about them. Ultimately, it becomes what WE do, not what they did. There will be no excuse for our intentional acts towards them or anybody, buy especially them. If a snarling animal were to come at us and we killed it, that would be the terrible karma of killing. "But," we'll say, "it was going to kill us, or harm us, or it was scaring us by snarling! So that shouldn't be bad karma; I should get a freebie on that one."

Now, think about it for a moment. If even a snarling savage wild crazed rabid animal were coming at us, snarling and looking ready to bite, and we killed it THAT would be bad karma with suffering for us as the result, how much more for a father, mother, or stepparent -- who came at us providing life, food, shelter, assistance, learning, and so much more?

• 

  I slapped this on my Dad's car so he'd know.

  Sure, of course, we don't remember that. We weren't aware and don't now remember when we were infants puking on our dads and moms or parental figures. How we pooped, got sick, were helpless, needed things, got housed, got fed, got cared for, got loved... Sure, we'll say, "Nah, dawg, you don't know my dad [or Mom or whoever]!" And we can tell stories about how bad he was (or they were), how much he drank and yelled and restricted and punished and threatened and spanked or punched or worse. Blah, blah, blah. It's true. It's understandable. But it's not going to matter. It is NOT going to make it neutral karma, and it sure isn't good karma. "But, but...but I was ill-equipped to handle it. No one taught me any other way! I blame my dad, stupid jerk, for not teaching me better! HE made me do it! I treat him like he treated me at the worst of times (because I've forgotten the best of times when he was doing so much for me that I don't count or never knew about)."

D.R.I. somehow learned about "Karma" and sang about it

• 

  I don't deserve what happens to me!

  "Karma's a b*tch," that's the saying. What does it mean? It means karma can be. How is "karma" defined in the West? "What comes around goes around." And what does that saying mean? That means what we send upstream will be coming downstream, what we put out comes back, what we throw out there sooner or later lands on our heads. When we put out something in the wind, it will eventually be hitting us right in the face. So if we spit or pee or poop, ooh, that's going to be a "b*tch" all right. But what if we were to waft fragrant flower petals before us, or wondrous incense smoke, or the aroma of savory food? Mmm, that would be pleasing! That would be welcome hitting us in the face. So it is not that "Karma is a B" all the time, just the times when our karma (deeds) are as awful as offal (tripe, eviscerated waste, poop).

The real meaning of "6-7"

Karma: Take that, Old Man! - Hah, you Ingrate!

Karma works out its results quite impersonally. Y'know how annoying Christians say, "God is not mocked" (Galatians 6:7)? I think they're really, without realizing it, talking about Karma. We don't really get away with things only we know we did. The truth will out, maybe not in this lifetime, and maybe we'll content ourselves to say, "There can't no other lifetimes because I don't believe in that!" but it won't matter.

• 

  Hey, don't c u comin up with a better explanation

  Remember that slightly stoopid fad kids had going not long ago, saying "six seven" to everything for no apparent reason? (Thanks, South Park! *sarcasm*). Wisdom Quarterly wonders if it wasn't some semi-conscious allusion to Galatians 6:7. It's not like anybody reads the Bible nowadays, and no one consciously remembers. But it gets shoved down our threats and into our heads, so who knows if it didn't sneak in so that when everyone heard "six seven," it did have this meaning: "Do not be deceived. Karma cannot be mocked. We reap (harvest) what we sow (plant)."

F Dad who never cared 'bout me

But, y'know, like, what if you do hate him? It's understandable to be very mad at an American parent, fathers and mothers -- and those super jerks the stepparents, who didn't even give birth to a kid and have to suffer the same things and worse from the troubled kids they adopt. It's not all for nothing, parents. It's no accident we adopt. It's no accident we were born into this society that taught and trained us this way, so that's not going to work as an excuse to get us off the karmic hook. Who would ask us, Yama King of the Dead? Jehovah/Yahweh/Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge? Karma does not work through "court" proceedings. It just does its thing. Without knowing it, we are carrying around the seeds of it right now so that wherever we go, there we are. And wherever we go, karma is already there. Karma is the builder, the creator, the producer of our states and traits, our vipaka and phala (karmic resultants and fruits).

The Other F Word: Punk Doc

So what's a person to do? What action (karma) would produce merit? One should ask, "Hey, if I hate my Dad and am going to get into a world of karmic consequences for ignoring or mistreating him, what should I do?" That would be a great question to ask the Buddha, the Awakened One. If one is lucky enough to seek guidance from the Buddha, the Dharma, or the [Noble = Enlightened] Sangha, that will be a very good question. And here's what they would say:

Cultivate metta. Cultivate all four of the Divine Abidings. It will be for YOUR good for a long, long time. Seeing as how we've been cultivating terrible qualities -- whether we learned them from our parents or not -- this would be a great way to go against the stream that pull us down. We could RISE ABOVE (all the BS and family problems we were born into) and go up!

Black Flag with punker Henry Rollins: "Rise Above"

There's a better way to respond to life?

The lotus bud figured this out long ago. Ever notice where the most beautiful and fragrant lotus flowers grow? That's right -- in the mud and mire, the filth and pollution. They love it, accept it, transform it into the most beautiful things. Come to think of it, all the best tasting food grows on dirt, mud, soil, and fertilizer. Fertilizer?! That's made of dung 💩🐽🤭, isn't it?

Who Ordered This...Dung?

So Western Theravada monk Ajahn Brahm wrote that book making this point: If a dump truck pulls up in front of your house and drops a massive load, what should you do? B*tch and complain, tell everybody how unfair it is that this happened to you, take revenge, start throwing it at everyone like a monkey in a zoo would?

Or might it be a better idea to take it around back to the garden, dig it into the ground, and get the most beautiful flowers and vegetables and fruits from its transformation? Bury it. Let it do good. You'll be thanking that dump truck driver in the end, if you follow this enlightened advice.

When I was a kid, I had a cousin of around the same age. My Dad was a drunk, his father was a religious nut. We'd come home from school and call each other. During those phone calls, I would tell him the latest insanity my dad displayed, and he would tell me what his pops (my uncle) was up to. Before long, it became a contest. "Hah, my dad's a bigger a-hole than your dad!"

Homer, your son says you're a bad father to him.

"Oh yeah, well, let me tell you what he was up to today." And we would flabbergast each other with the ghastly things those fathers of ours had done. Sometimes he won, but most of the time, no one could touch my dad for sheer awfulness, depravity, drunkenness, and vulgarity, to say nothing of the threats, punishments, and always having me be in some kind of trouble or restriction. I fought back. My cousin was smarter and kept his head down, "Yes, Dad," that way he avoided trouble. We eventually called it a draw and my belief that if only he didn't drink, my dad would be all right. His dad never drank and was this much of an a-hole? Hah! What's a growing boy to do? I did what, it seems, few other boys do.

I didn't drink, and I didn't believe in my parents' religion. No way, what hypocrisy! The whole idea of a "father" in the sky was enough for me to say, "F the Patriarchy!" Very punk rock, very crossover, very thrash, very heavy metal, very extreme and alternative. But what's a boy to do, having given up that cultural inheritance? Look for a new, a better one, something I chose rather than was born into (on account of karma).

I eventually loved my dad. I always loved him. I didn't think I didn't love him. I just hated him on top of that. So I stopped that extra layer, stopped ruminating on all the negative things he did. Why/how? I learned Buddhism and Eightfold Yoga.

Buddha Yoga (Wm. Bodri)

I rejected Western materialism and sought answers in the East, where I always suspected they were, just like so many before me, from Siddhartha to Jews of all eras like Jesus, who was more likely an Essene, Gnostic, Buddhist monk at Hemis Gompa in Ladakh, a student of Vedic Brahmanism, and not much of a "Jew," as the Ashkenazi of today would have the West believe).

There's more we can do to love our dads and moms (or at least not hate them) than the Four Divine Abidings. That's why it's invaluable (so valuable that a price cannot be put on it) to have learned and practiced "meditation." What is this English word we call "meditation"? It is cultivation (like dung in the garden or farm), self-improvement, development (bhavana), literally "bringing into being" what we want, like to not be so mad, angry, resentful, and ingrateful.

If we cultivate the opposite of these four, what would we be like? We could be sane, here and now under these circumstance; we could be more loving, joyful, and grateful -- FULL of gratitude not only for our parents, such as they were, but for all the other people who sort of "parented" us when our parents weren't always up to the task: teachers, family, friends, acquaintances, pure strangers, enemies even. There's a very beautiful saying in Hinduism that really helped me when I reflected on it to not be resentful of the harm people do us, with or without knowing how much harm they're doing:

The sandalwood tree sprinkles perfume on the axe that lays it low.

I once opened a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant. Who knows why, it's not like I ate those cookies or believed in the mass printed fortunes in them, and I found a treasure. This ancient wisdom of the East:

The wise person learns more from the fool

than the fool ever learns from the wise.

• Metta: The Philosophy and Practice of Universal Love

The Other F Word: punk rock doc on the payback of Fatherhood

The Other F Word: Flea and daughter Clara, deleted scene (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

The Other F Word: Punk Rock Documentary

(CLUB LADIEZ) The Other F Word is an American documentary film directed by independent filmmaker Andrea Blaugrund Nevins. It explores the world of aging punk rock musicians as they transition into being parents and try to maintain the contrast between their anti-authoritarian lifestyle/pose with the responsibilities of Fatherhood, the titular "other F word." In addition to interviewing over 20 musicians [1] from across the spectrum of the genre -- including Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, Mark Hoppus of Blink 182, and Fat Mike of NOFX -- the film also includes other emblematic figures of the punk subculture such as professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, in a chronicle of the struggles and rewards that accompany raising children. It was released in the U.S. by Oscilloscope Laboratories in 2011. More

(cphershon) D.R.I: Birth of the Imbeciles (1982)

Trump's opens Lizard People portal

(Maron in the Garage) Marc Maron: Trump and Lizard People (Naga) Portal

• Falsettos (Trafalgar/Lucie Svodobova); MisterQuigley; D.R.I./Dirty Rotten Imbeciles; Angry Samoans; Oscilloscope Labs The Other F Word (free on YouTube); Marc Maron; Dhr. Seven, Sheldon S., Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly